Every lung we suck in consists mainly of nitrogen, with a generous amount of oxygen and a little carbon dioxide.
But cleaning this atmospheric soup is a whole encyclopedia of different compounds and elements, some of which we can only speculate about.
However, one of those mysteries has just come into focus. Chemists have shown that there is a reactive class of compounds in the atmosphere called organic hydroxides, and while these chemicals last only a short time, they could have effects we do not know about.
In fact, according to researchers’ calculations, you just sucked a few billion molecules out of them while reading this.
What exactly this means for your health, not to mention the health of our planet, is literally and figuratively in the air. But since we have just discovered this new ingredient in the Earth’s atmosphere, it is worth a look.
“These compounds have always existed - we just didn’t know about them,” says chemist Henrik Groome Kjergard of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
“But the fact that we now have evidence that the compounds were formed and that they have been living for some time means that it is possible to study their effect … and react if they turn out to be dangerous.
Very often in chemistry, adding just one new component can radically change the way a material behaves.
Take water, for example. Thanks to the way its pair of hydrogen and one oxygen interact, organic chemistry can mix and swirl into an evolutionary phenomenon we call life.
However, add just one more oxygen and we get hydrogen peroxide - a far more reactive compound that can separate living chemicals.
Put another oxygen on this angry little molecule, and the result is hydrotrioxide. To make it, you only need the appropriate laboratory equipment, some saturated organic compounds and a little dry ice.
It’s not exactly the kind of fun trick you would use to spice up a margarita, but chemists have used their production to create a specific taste of molecular oxygen as a step in the production of various other substances.
Since they are very reactive, the question is whether hydrotrioxides can easily form stable structures in the atmosphere.
It’s not just an academic guess. So much of the way our atmosphere works, from the complex ways it affects personal health to the large scale of the global climate, stems from the way trace materials interact.
“Most human activities lead to the emission of chemicals into the atmosphere. Therefore, knowing the reactions that determine atmospheric chemistry is important if we want to predict how our actions will affect the atmosphere in the future,” says Kristan H. Møller, also a chemist from the University of Copenhagen.
The team’s research now provides the first direct observations of the formation of hydrotrioxide in atmospheric conditions from several substances known to be present in our air.
This allowed them to study the way the compound is likely to be synthesized, how long it stays, and how it degrades.
One such emission, called isoprene, can react in the atmosphere and produce about 10 million metric tons of hydroxide each year.
However, this is only one potential source. Based on the team’s calculations, almost any compound could, in theory, play a role in the formation of hydrotrioxides in the atmosphere, which remain intact for somewhere between a few minutes to a few hours.
During that time, they can participate in a number of other reactions as a powerful oxidant, some of which could be shielded inside microscopic solids floating in the winds.
“It is easy to imagine that new substances are formed in aerosols that are harmful if inhaled. But further investigation is needed to address these potential health effects, “Kjergard said.
Since aerosols also affect the way our planet reflects sunlight, knowing how their internal chemistry causes them to grow or degrade can change the way we model our climate.
Further research will undoubtedly begin to reveal the role of hydrotrioxide in the atmospheric cocktail of our planet. As Ying Chen, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, observes, this is really just the beginning.
“Indeed, the air around us is a huge mix of complex chemical reactions,” says Chen.
“As researchers, we have to be open if we want to be better at finding solutions.
This research was published in Science.